PayPal Acquires Mobile-Wallet Tech Company card.io

PayPal announced on their blog today that they have acquired card.io, the San Francisco-based company that "provides technology for developers to capture credit card information by using the camera on a smartphone."

About this, Hill Ferguson, PayPal's VP of Global Product, released the following statement:

We first met with the team at card.io when we were working on integrating their technology into the PayPal Here mobile app. While working with them, we were simply blown away by the creativity and drive of their employees. They are a passionate and independent team that likes solving large, complex problems and we wanted them to join our team. Great people make great products and great products are what make companies great. The employees at card.io will be joining the PayPal global product team in San Jose to help us create new experiences to make it even easier for consumers and merchants to use the PayPal digital wallet. The current card.io technology will remain available to developers for use in their own applications.

The card.io team is joining PayPal for the same reasons that the Zong team was excited to join PayPal last year - to get the opportunity to work on projects that will accelerate innovation at a scale that's just not possible at a startup.

We can't wait to get them involved in helping us change the future of shopping and payments.

Given that card.io's big draw is its complete self-sufficiency — unlike Square, it doesn't require any attachments, instead relying on your phone's own camera to capture your credit card info — it seems a logical score for the web payment platform of PayPal. What they plan to do with card.io, however, remains to be seen. [PayPal Blog]